Prototype 2

Radical’s Latest Emerges From Prototyping Phase

When the first Prototype released in 2009, it did a lot of things
right: traversing the towering skyscrapers of New York City, stealing
the identity of anyone you see, and forming weapons out of your
character’s grotesquely morphed appendages. It fell short with a
frustrating combat system, lackluster visuals, and inconsistent
missions. Prototype 2 feels like a well-heard response to fan feedback,
addressing nearly every issue from the original.

Over a
year after the events of Prototype 1, New York is overrun yet again by
the Blacklight virus. Former protagonist Alex Mercer has gone completely
to the dark side, and new hero James Heller is out for revenge against
Mercer for causing the outbreak that killed his family. Before long,
Mercer grants his viral powers to Heller, seeing potential in the
experienced soldier and hoping to win him as an ally.

Mercer
slides easily into the antagonist role, since he was always more of an
antihero. Heller reminds me of God of War’s Kratos, focused entirely on
revenge with his emotions set constantly on angry. With him, Radical
essentially traded in one story cliché (amnesia) for another (dead wife
and kid). The arc hits all the familiar beats along the way without
dropping any silly twists. Character interactions unfold in pre-rendered
cutscenes, displayed in stylish black and white with red highlights.
Except for confronting Mercer from time to time, they primarily exist so
that Heller can threaten people or abruptly walk out when he’s got the
gist of the next mission. Fortunately, these story-delivery nuggets fly
by quickly, keeping you out in the action as much as possible.

Bouncing
through the city and pounding the hell out of everything is the real
focus here. The city traversal is some of the best I’ve seen. Like
Mercer before him, Heller can sprint up a skyscraper in seconds, dash
and glide through the air, and commandeer tanks and helicopters – but
now the controls feel more natural. I loved how quickly I could zip
across the whole city to a mission in no time and still land on a dime
or flee a strike team and transform in a dark alley to escape.

The
mobility improvements are nice, but combat has evolved even more.
Instead of constantly fiddling with a weapon wheel, two powers are
mapped to separate face buttons, allowing you to mix up ground-pounding
Hammerfist area attacks with speedy melee claws. Or maybe you’d prefer
pairing an arm blade with the long-range Whipfist that can cut groups of
enemies in half. A new power extends tendrils from your arm and strings
up a target, leaving it vulnerable to limb-slicing or other special
attacks. Especially cool is its charged black hole attack that goes into
the enemy, shoots out a bunch of tentacles, and pulls in surrounding
debris.

New defensive options make Heller feel like a complete
combat package rather than Mercer’s tendency to get caught up in a
volley of Hunter punches or missiles with little chance of escape. The
shield is easily accessible at all times, and it doesn’t ever break.
Time it right and you can even reflect rockets or counter melee attacks
with a shield bash covered in long spikes. You can also easily flip over
enemies when they attack and start slashing from behind. I felt like I
had to run away from battle to recharge a lot less this time around.

The
difficulty remains relatively mild with a challenging flare-up here and
there, but it never gets cheap. While most of the missions aren’t too
tough on their own, many of them contain an Assassin’s Creed-style bonus
objective for extra experience. Sometimes you simply have to try out a
brand-new power, but other times you have to fight a huge infested
monster without getting hit, for example. Overall, these objectives are
easier to pull off than AC’s, but I always appreciate when developers
hint at a unique way to solve a problem to pull me out of methods I’ve
settled into.

You’ll be tracking targets to consume with a
city-wide sonar ping, putting down infected monstrosities,
busting/sneaking into bases, chasing creatures along the rooftops,
posing as a Blackwatch soldier. Some stretches feel a little repetitive,
but things always pick back up soon enough, especially at the end. The
final boss puts all of your powers to the test, and is much more
narratively significant than the previous final boss. Unfortunately, the
by-the-numbers, post-battle wrap-up doesn’t leave much of an impact.

You
could just stick to the core objectives and get through the game
quickly, but it’s wise to keep up with the extra Blacknet missions as
well. They provide unique tasks, more evolution points, and unique
mutation upgrades. These mutations work outside the standard leveling
system offering bonus range or damage to certain powers, faster hijack
speed, and more. They can also be obtained by picking up black boxes
scattered throughout the city, taking down hidden Blackwatch squads, and
clearing underground lairs. Don’t worry, there are far fewer than the
hundreds of floating orbs in the original, and the brilliant in-game
hint system ensures that you can find everything without cracking open a
guide once.

Prototype 2 has officially redeemed this franchise.
The mechanics feel the way you wished they would have in the first
installment, and it’s a rush to abuse your incredible powers any way you
see fit. If you’ve stayed away from the first game because of the
lackluster word of mouth, don’t hesitate to jump right into the sequel. A
slick video catches you up on everything right out of the gate so
there’s no excuse to miss this taste of ultimate viral power.

What is Radnet?

Radnet is the online
component of Prototype 2 that comes as a code with every new copy of the
game. For seven weeks, the game updates with a new set of minigames,
challenges, avatar items, and DLC content (weapons, skins, etc.).
Minigame “events” will show up in your normal game, tasking you kill as
many enemies as you can in a certain time limit, collect packages on
rooftops, throw virus barrels into an incinerator, and more. If you
complete a weekly set of tasks, you get a making-of video, a new
mutation power, evolution points, and, if you beat all challenge sets,
an Alex Mercer skin to use in the main game. Leaderboards keep track of
all your scores and will promptly notify your friends if you best their
scores. While I appreciate the attempt to introduce Pinball FX-style
score battles, I just don’t care if someone does better than me at roof
running. I just want to get a bronze rating on the event and move on to
the next task so I can nab that weekly reward faster.

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User Reviews:

Being able to morph body parts into any number of weapons seems like the perfect game, but an occasional frame rate issue or frustrating game play make the game less successful than it should be. In Prototype 2, the gamer plays as James Heller, returning from discovering his family has been killed and...

14 months after the events of the first Prototype, disaster still reigns in New York City, now called New York Zone. Thousands of infected transformed by the Blacklight virus roam the streets, and Blackwatch continues to hide its sinister motives from the general public. However, Prototype 2 isn't...

I know lot of people didn't like the repetitiveness of Prototype 1, I enjoyed it though. This game doesn't have that, much. Prototype 2 was an excellent game, well made to surpass it's predecessor, it was fun, addictive, and had that creepy tone like the first had. The narrative, and voice...

Prototype has always been a game that I would go to in order to blow off steam and have a good time. The ability to kill anything with a pulse and bring total destruction to the world around you with awesome powers just screamed “satisfaction”. However, due to the games rather constant difficulty...

Prototype 2 has done a terrific job of embellishing and building on strengths of the original while rectifying all the weak spots of Prototype one. I'm sure there's nothing I can point out before that you haven't heard already so I'll just give a list of my pros and cons here. Pros: Graphics...